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What is ‘success’ to a parent?

It's no good if we achieve every goal and lose the thing most valuable

Yesterday, as I grocery-shopped, a young child wailed hopelessly tugging at a caretaker with large shopping trolleys. The man was on his phone and didn’t notice the crying, while everyone else in the billing queues around did. Mums nearby squirmed uncomfortably, trying to wave/smile at the cute fellow. The three or four-year-old wore the uniform of a top city school, and the shopping trolleys were loaded with products that smelt of privilege. The wailing went on.Soon I couldn’t contain myself and walked across to ask the man what the child was upset about. He tore himself away from his screen and replied, “He wants another chocolate.” I hesitatingly suggested he pick up the child who was trapped in the trolley and hold him. Ideally, I would pick him up myself.He didn’t. The child continued whining, and was administered a few ‘EY!’s as a threat (as if he was a pack animal). He seemed to be familiar with this language and stopped crying for a while. Soon they were joined by a lady with more groceries and I wondered if she was the nanny and the man, the driver. They had a job at hand – the groceries – and they went at it. The live child was as good as a head of cabbage in the trolley. As the crying began again (yes, it was a wretchedly-long time at billing), a shop assistant (praise God for her!) couldn’t take it any longer and took him out of the trolley, carried him to the entrance, and set him up with a baby shopping trolley.

Both caretakers were oblivious; but the little fellow was thrilled. Giving him that toddler-appropriate activity was perfect. He ran around the large store grinning at whoever cared to greet him. Random people pinched his cheeks and carried him.

I was happy that he was happy, but his exposure to so many potential dangers (kidnapping, abuse, emotional neglect) has remained with me. He wasn’t an orphan. He was an affluent child with parents who were away presumably away preparing for his future – at the cost of his present. This event didn’t look like a one-off – the caretakers appeared jaded.

From experience, when the present is lost, there IS no future.At his affluent school, I wonder how much attention he was accustomed to, and whether he was experiencing love, or being academically-trained instead. ‘Instead’, because a child that small doesn’t have the bandwidth for both.

My educationist friends talk of a new breed of cold, distant children they’re dealing with. Countless times I have seen nannies discipline children in parks the way they know best, and display apathy when littlies need a show of care.

Is it their fault? I don’t think so. I’ve had conversations with many that say they are tired (and boy, are children exhausting!), and that they have their own problems bogging them down. They are doing a job as best they can. And that ‘best’ is very, very subjective.

If you have a relative in hospital that you have to take dinner to or arrange to pay a bill in a few hours, for example, cuddling a baby or engaging it in brain-stimulating activities is not on your mind at all! I call for a reprioritising. I ask for a rethinking of what ‘success’ is. I beg for a close look at life from a child’s perspective. Please, parents, I ask you to think long-term, about choices you make.

I have seen too many couples who’ve gained the world and lost their children.